A.S. Wilkins

Here on the blog and in some of my presentations, I have been known to claim that biological macroevolution is unimportant and irrelevant with regard to understanding and conducting research in biology (let alone other fields of science). I only recently* came across a like sentiment from A.S. Wilkins, the editor of the journal BioEssays (2000). He wrote...

While the great majority of biologists would agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution," most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.

*This quote was cited in an opinion piece by Philip Skell (about which I'll share more in a future blog), which in turn I found cited in Thomas Woodward's latest book, Darwin Strikes Back.